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Women’s Precollege Sports Participation, Enjoyment of Sports, and Self-esteem

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Abstract

This study tested a model that specifies that the psychosocial impact of women’s precollege sports participation depends on the quality of their sports experience, that is, on participants’ enjoyment of sports and the benefits derived from athletic pursuits. A sample of 245 college women (mean age = 19.9 years) provided retrospective reports of their precollege sports involvement as well as assessments of their enjoyment of sports, perceived physical competence, body image, gender role orientation, and self-esteem. Consistent with past research, women students’ precollege sport participation was a modest predictor of their self-esteem in bivariate analyses. Follow-up analyses revealed that enjoyment of sports mediated the sports participation/self-esteem relationship and implied that female participants who find sports less enjoyable may be at risk of experiencing declining self-esteem. However, enjoyment of sports explained little unique variance in global self-esteem after we controlled for the influence of other sports-related benefits (e.g., improved physical competence). Implications for those who hope to help more girls reap psychosocial benefits from sporting activities are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Copies of the Sports Enjoyment Scale are available, upon request, from the first author.

  2. Although race/ethnicity did not explain additional variance for any measure in our model, the fact remains that our small number of participants of Color may not have been sufficient to detect meaningful racial/ethnic differences in the sport participation/self-esteem relationship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

    David R. Shaffer & Erin Wittes

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  1. David R. Shaffer
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  2. Erin Wittes
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Correspondence to David R. Shaffer.

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This article is based on a Master’s thesis conducted by the second author under the direction of the first author.

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Shaffer, D.R., Wittes, E. Women’s Precollege Sports Participation, Enjoyment of Sports, and Self-esteem. Sex Roles 55, 225–232 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9074-3

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